Cult Cinema

The film i have chosen is the twilight saga, the reason i have chose these set of films is because of the extreme popularity and the vast amount of fandom on the internet, Ive also mentioned about the Star Wars series to and how it has mutiple approaches to been cult.

During my research into the Twilight films i found many different fan sites, including a few roleplay sites too. The Roleplay website i found was called "The official Twilight Saga Roleplay Site". Unlike fansites Roleplay websites allow an individual to have an avatar representing themselves, but the avatar is a character of the film for example "Bella". Roleplay also consists of chinging your name to your favorite character, after creating and re-structuring your character, you then talk to other individuals who have their own characters from the films.

I think that for many people who do not feel socially accepted or find it hard fitting in at school, college or talking to people, the roleplay sites help them to become who they want to be without anybody making comments about there appearance. As the people on the Twilight roleplay site all have the same interest this allows them to gain the confidence and have the freedom to be able to talk to people over the internet without feeling thretened.

Another type of fan site i found was a website called "The Twilight Saga" where i found a forum called "How didn't Edward know it was possible to get Bella pregnant?". Below is an example I found of a fan responding to this question.

Reply by The Party God on March 2, 2012 at 5:19pm

Well, since there is no record of a human getting pregnant after a sexual encounter with a vampire (seeing how all of those encounters ended in the victim being drained of blood... go figure) and they figured since Edward died, ALL of his bodily functions died with him, I think it's safe to say that their carelessness really was not their fault. Not even medical science can explain that.

This response shows that the individual is confusing the fiction with reality and is talking about the characters as if they were real people, rather than talking about the actors who play the characters in the film, this is another example of social awkwardness and how they dont really feel accepted into the real world.

My own definition for a "Cult Film" has to come down to how the audience reacts and responds to the film, like how the themes look in certain scenes and how the equilibrium and activites flow within the matter.
A quick example of a Cult film would have to be the Star Wars series, some people hate it some people love it and then some people take it to the next level by dressing up as the characters, like I said before aswell roleplay is a key factor to, but what makes it live on to be a cult film also is the fanart and conventions they have. Another example would be that they have a celebration day for the film also its called May the 4th "http://www.facebook.com/events/311307258918643/", this example is one where people go to major nightclubs dressed as characters from the film, not to re-inact but just for fun.

Marketing and Publicising Films

Our group decided to choose to look into the film The Muppets.

The film had a worldwide release and its a feature film so therefore it got released and shown to at basically every cinema thats in the catchment area of its released date , it got shown in over 3000 cinema screens. The release date for The Muppets was the 23rd November this was in the following countries USA and Canada. The film would of got released at every popular cinema house in America because this film is a mainstream film.

On the 4th November the Muppets got a screening at Savannah Film Festival, this film festival screens everything from feature lengths to student competition films.

In 2011 the film got nominated 2 times and won 1 of them, this wasnt an exciting award it was just awarded for best live action family film and best original song this was called the PFCS Award. The Muppets got nominated 5 times in 2012 and won 2 of them, one of them was an Oscar and the other one was critics choice awards and that was for yet again the best song.

This film was a straight blanket release, it was just grossing the money back in, this is why they didnt just do a limited release. 

It seems like the critics reactions to the Muppets film seem very high and nothing but great news, a few critic websites I looked on such as Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic both had rated it at above 75 out of 100.

The film created media debate because its a classic film and a classic childrens TV show, it got alot of media attention and made news headlines on every media and news website or TV show. The film has gross $88,565,048 thats just how much it got back from each cinema and ect, how much the actual film itself has took in will be a smaller number from this. The Muppets had legs yes! it was running in the cinema in Hull for just over a month and probably had about 5 screenings a day. On-line presence was strong it was posted everywhere now that YouTube has now got advertisements on basically every video, alot of people access the internet and have a huge advantage over it, not seeing the advert for this film would be known as not possible, as I have seen it on multiple sites.

Refrence
http://boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=muppets.htm
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1204342/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1204342/awards

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_muppets/

http://boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=muppets.htm

Auteur Theory

For my director I have chosen J.J Abrams.

J.J Abrams is known for directing and creating the hit TV shows Lost and Alias. Both of these shows he has directed straight away both have similarities, they both are Sci Fi related and they have the habit of leaving you on the edge of your seat each episode ends.
He hasnt just directed sci fi films, he has directed the fast action paced film Mission Impossible 3. He has also directed other films aswell and these are Super 8 and Star Trek both by default sci fi films, in the film Super 8 there is a scene where the train crashes and it all goes wrong, the same story kinda goes for his TV show Lost, the island the people are stuck on just suddenly sinks, it feels like the same visual effects used with the train crash. J.J Abrams has used certain visual effects to create massive controversial film conspiracies, this is because when the film Cloverfield got released there is certain parts in the film that flicker and for all the Lost fans he put this logo in and its like he was trying to connect Lost with Cloverfield, the logo is a tiny picture of the Dharma Initiative, this the science lab that is involved in the Lost series.

J.J Abrams puts all his effort into his work, even tho the massive series of Lost he only directed a couple of episodes, he wrote all 115 of them. He got directors to come in and do alot of directing whilst he had time off to do other things, but he brought in directors that have had experience with directing Sci Fi TV shows or films before. There was one director that J.J had in repeadtly he was called Jack Bender, he has done previous work such as Childs Play 3 and also directed the TV series of Sopranos. Abrams also brought someone in to direct called Stephen Semel, he directed just a couple of episodes but looking onto his profile he has more experience with editing more than anything.

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Chungking Express

Task 1 - Research the 5 terms listed on the brief.

 
Auteur Theory


This theory applies to certain directors and can also apply to any art form including editing or just art work its self such as paintings or drawings, with a further explination its used in media terms to those who use certain shots again and again in each different film they produce, it could also get refrenced at editors aswell because they might apply a grain effect to a certain scene and then use it exactly the same in another project with the exact same camera angle and even genre! I suppose you could even identify a auteur by genre aswell, one example of this would have to be Tim Burton, he has directed Alice in Wonderland the newest version of course also he has directed the film Corpse Bride. Both of these films are quite dark and just so very strange. 


French New Wave


French New Wave had its big time run juring 1958-1964, it still continued to progress after these years. Juring these years of it been essencially founded, it involved surrealism into the directors work and basically made a new meaning for cinema viewing which for some films have a niche audience to them. French New Wave basically included a very low budget to shoot there films with, they often shot on location and do what not many films do today which is get the actors to improvise and they even improvised plots to!


Film Noir

Film Noir began in the 1930's when TV was first introduced to our living rooms, Film Noir means films are shot in black and white with a negative, dark and bleak effect to it, the term is french for 'black film'. This type of genre had a big hit with the gangster or crime related films in the 1930's. 

As you can see by the example i have chose, you can see how bleak and overall a shadow look to the footage.





Leitmotif

Leitmotif is where in a film or any media related medium a person, object or even idea is dominantly been repeated and occurs again and again in the film.




Intertextuality






Task 2 - Remake as a Hollywood remake?


It would be possible to remake this as a Hollywood film, obviously because it would be mainstream parts of it would have to drastically change for the audience to keep interest, the type of audience what would watch a remake of this would be the passive audience because the actors that I have chosen they have been in films that are simple to follow and you can see the equilibrium like a flashing light.
I think that to acheive the placement of the area like we see in Chungking Express it would have to be remade in America in the city called Balitimore because I was looking at some information on the city and its in the top 25 most dangerous cities according to the website business insider, Baltimore would be the city where i think Hollywood would remake the movie because where the film is set, its got a stingy dangerous feeling to it.

For replacing the characters roles I would replace the quirky eating pineapple cop with Nicholas Cage because I think he has been in his share of films and had to play different characters each time but mostly play the same one in certain films.
For the blonde hair women Brigitte Lin I would want to replace her with Milla Jovovich, this is because in Chungking Express she acts as action type female character and Milla has been in nothing but action type films such as The Fifth Element and the obvious most famous films Resident Evil.
Tony Leung known at Cop 663 I think I would have Matt Damon to play at his role, the reason why was because I was trying to think of a mysterious character but seemed like a serious character.



Task 3 - Make a List of the Consumer Goods.

- Coca Cola
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Atlantic Film Distributions

 I have found a distribution company called Atlantic Film Distributions, the company is made up of four people Josh Newiss, Julian Newiss, Amanda Walsh and Peter Bazalgette. They have all worked on previous films and television programmes, Peter Bazalgette has worked on and with the TV shows Ready Steady Cook and Changing Rooms, Peter also brought the hit TV series Big Brother to the UK.
Atlantic Film Distributions have brought out films such as Tales from the Golden Age and Samson & Delilah.
They promote them selves by publishing themselves on the internet and they put there award winning content on there site and what they have published themselves.